


brother let me be your shelter

by icanthelpbut_love_you



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e19 Aku Cinta Kamu, Hurt/Comfort, Jace is a good parabatai for once, M/M, POV Jace Wayland, Parabatai Bond, well pre-hurt/comfort anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 12:23:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18638056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icanthelpbut_love_you/pseuds/icanthelpbut_love_you
Summary: If he’d been less hyper-focused on Clary when he got back to the institute tonight his first clue that something was wrong should have been the fact that Alec was still working. He can’t even recall the last time Alec didn’t slink off the second they wrapped up to spend every possible free moment with his boyfriend.It’s all off, and Jace is abruptly reminded that when he’d seen Magnus this morning he wasn’t wearing the Lightwood ring.Jace experiences firsthand exactly how not-okay Alec is in the aftermath of breaking up with Magnus.





	brother let me be your shelter

**Author's Note:**

> Love a good parabatai moment, seriously have not got enough this season. So have Jace’s take on a heartbroken Alec before their chat in 3x19, complete with an amusing anecdote of young Jace being a menace. 
> 
> Title is from ‘Brother’ by NEEDTOBREATHE (such an aggressive name)

Jace doesn’t notice it when Clary knocks him out with the metal pipe. He doesn’t notice it when he comes back around, groggy and disorientated with a throbbing in his skull that promises to turn into a vicious headache. He doesn’t notice it when he drags himself back to the institute, licking his wounds and trying to push back the sickening combination of guilt and fear overtaking him.

In fact, it’s not until he’s striding through the institute preparing for the mission, well after they’ve debriefed about the whole Clary-Jonathan situation, that he notices it. An aching, burning sadness that creeps through his veins until it takes root in his heart and tears. It’s an ache that, now he’s thought to separate it from his own whirling emotions, is radiating distinctively from just above his hip. From his parabatai rune. 

Whether that’s because of his proximity to Alec, because the adrenaline is finally fading, or because after offloading everything that’s happened only now does he actually have enough space in his head to process any thoughts beyond _holy shit Clary’s gone_ , he’s not sure. But what he does know is that now he’s noticed it, it’s impossible to ignore. Actually, the more he thinks about it the weirder it is that he’s only now picking up such debilitating emotional pain from his parabatai. It’s like noticing a twinge in your side and only then coming to the surprising realisation that at some point you’ve been stabbed. Reeling from the aftermath with no memory of the initial impact.

There’s only one explanation. Alec is deliberately blocking him. 

Normally, they both erect something of a filter between them, and after years of practice they’ve got it down to an art. Most of the emotions felt by one of them are experienced by the other as more of a fleeting impression than an actual identifiable feeling, enough to get a general sense of each other’s mental state and for anything major to still come through loud and clear (definitely important when they both spend most of their time in life-threatening situations). 

The filter has been... kind of a necessity (mainly for Alec’s sanity rather than Jace’s up until very recently). They’d learnt the value of it early on, and Jace has no problems taking full responsibility for that particular lesson. He’d been in his mid-teens when they first got the bond, at the peak of puberty and (for want of a better word) unbelievably horny. It hadn’t been until a few weeks after the ceremony, when Alec had caught him sneaking home in the early hours of the morning after fumbling around with a cute werewolf girl, that they’d realised exactly how much came through the bond. Jace had been bewildered (hurt too, not that he’d admit it) when Alec taken one look at him and made himself scarce without so much as a disapproving glare, and proceeded to completely avoid him for the rest of the day. 

“Are you seriously that much of a prude that you’re judging me right now?!” he remembers exclaiming when he finally lost his cool and confronted Alec, after Alec had walked into a room Jace was in and only to turn straight back around to leave. 

“Jace, no I… It’s just – it’s not that at all,” Alec had hurried to assure him, but the effect was distinctly lessened by his inability to form a proper sentence and the fact he still wouldn’t look Jace in the eye. 

“Then explain to me what is going on here, because it sure seems like it.”

It had taken several minutes of embarrassed stuttering from the older boy before Jace had eventually made the connection between his walk of shame, Alec’s strange behaviour, and their bond. While the reason for Alec’s surliness had been an unpleasant surprise, Alec had definitely been traumatised enough for both of them, flushing an impressive shade of red when Jace had sincerely promised to… abstain until they’d sorted out a way to filter the excess emotional transfer.

Needless to say, Hodge had been delighted (if a little shocked) by Jace’s newfound enthusiasm for ironing out the finer points of their mental shields. Let it never be said that Jace doesn’t know how to work hard, provided he’s given sufficient motivation. 

But the point is, there’s enough of a barrier between them that Jace doesn’t get specifics of what Alec is feeling (no matter what he may have accidentally implied to Magnus). However, over the years he’s grown used to having a vague sense of Alec’s presence thrumming in the back of his head and enough information to get a general impression of how his parabatai is doing.

Right now, he’s getting nothing.

Nothing except for the incredible hurt and grief that feels like it’s eating away at his bones.

Alec must be blocking him out with everything he has for Jace not to be able to feel anything else from him. 

He stifles a groan as the gnawing pain abruptly intensifies, a lance of something strangely like guilt shooting up his side. As it abates again he’s hit with the realisation that for him to be able to feel this with Alec’s walls all the way up, whatever ‘this’ is must be eating Alec alive.

By the angel, if that scant impressions filtering through to Jace are this level of unbearable he can’t begin to imagine how Alec is feeling. It’s impossible to reconcile with the composed soldier he spoke to only a few minutes ago. Alec’s an expert in compartmentalisation though, and Jace knows that if anyone is capable of carrying on as though nothing’s wrong even as they’re practically being devoured from the inside by sorrow it’s Alec. 

But just because he can doesn’t mean he should.

Something has obviously happened. Alec’s been strange since their patrol, with that oddly specific and inexplicably depressing hypothetical he’d posed to Jace about Clary. But he’d only been tense and strangely melancholy then, so in the time it’s taken for Jace to speak to him again after returning to the institute something has happened that’s absolutely shattered him. 

Jace’s gut tells him it has to do with Magnus. Although to be fair it doesn’t exactly take a genius to work that out; lately just about everything in Alec’s life is related to Magnus in some way or another. He’s never seen Alec as genuinely happy as he’s been the past few months. Even without the constant current of contentment that’s been running through the bond, Alec is visibly softer. He smiles more, he’s less harsh, not so prone to self-destruction. 

He actually laughs now. Jace doesn’t remember him laughing before Magnus.

In fact, if he’d been less hyper-focused on Clary when he got back to the institute tonight his first clue that something was wrong should have been the fact that Alec was still working. He can’t even recall the last time Alec didn’t slink off the second they wrapped up to spend every possible free moment with his boyfriend.

It’s all off, and Jace is abruptly reminded that when he’d seen Magnus this morning he wasn’t wearing the Lightwood ring.

He sighs when he realises he’s subconsciously made his way towards Alec’s office, and he leans against the door in futile hope that maybe doing so will alleviate some of the discomfort pulsing through the bond. The grief has apparently decided to now manifest as a physical constriction around his lungs, squeezing uncomfortably and making him short of breath even from the brief walk here. 

Whatever’s happened, Alec needs to talk to someone before he collapses under the weight of it. Usually that someone would be Magnus, but even though Jace doesn’t exactly know what’s going on he has a hunch that that’s not in the cards today. So that leaves him.

The entire situation is reminiscent of the aftermath of Alec and Magnus’ big fight a few months ago. Jace still doesn’t really know what happened, he realises with a jolt, only that it had to do with the soul sword. He never asked. He knows that Alec would never hold it against him, especially considering everything else that was going on with Valentine (not to mention Jace literally dying), but he should have at least checked in when he’d seen with his own eyes Alec shutting down and throwing himself into his work. He’d been kind of a shitty parabatai back then, but this time he can be better. This time he’ll be there for Alec. 

He rests his hand on the doorknob for a second, steeling himself before opening the door.

Alec’s stubborn, especially when he’s hurting. This is going to be like pulling teeth.

**Author's Note:**

> Come and yell with me on tumblr (@icanthelpbut-love-you)


End file.
